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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011256">The List</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnt_august/pseuds/burnt_august'>burnt_august</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Avenger Reader (Marvel), F/M, Happy Ending, Kissing in the Rain, Light Angst, Light Pining, Nomad Steve Rogers, Post-Civil War, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Smooching, one of my fave clichés, tags? what are tags?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:41:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,670</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnt_august/pseuds/burnt_august</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone’s got a submission to his list. Watch this. Read that. Go there. But you’ve never given him anything. Not a single idea of what it is you like, what makes you feel at home in this world. Never made an effort to bridge the gap between the 40s and now, and yourself and him. And it oddly bothers him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers &amp; Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>108</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The List</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Everyone’s got a submission to his list. </p>
<p>Watch this. Read that. Eat here. Go there. I Love Lucy. Moon Landing. Berlin Wall. Steve Jobs. Disco. Thai food. Star Wars. Nirvana. Rocky. Troubleman Soundtrack. Things he absolutely <em>must </em>do if he wants to call himself a modern man. Which, he does. But kind of doesn’t? Doesn’t even matter much now anyway.</p>
<p>You don’t.</p>
<p>Have a submission to his list, that is.</p>
<p>You’ve never been talkative anyway, he reasons. You’re quiet, reserved, and a bit of an outsider in this haphazardly thrown together group of extraordinary people. Not that you’re ordinary, not in the slightest. You’re a comet. Your power, palpable. A volatile missile, ice and dust carving a hole through space. Nucleus, hard body amalgamation of granite muscle and tungsten bones. Tail, a whipping flurry of wild hair, muted decimation in its wake. No, you are far from ordinary.</p>
<p>You just… stick to the walls.</p>
<p>With arms– arms he’s seen bring men to their knees– crossed over your chest, face set in marble. Not unfriendly. You’ll talk nice when prompted, smile when appropriate, but you never initiate. You seem to prefer a distance, a line between work life and personal life. A line that just doesn’t exist with the Avengers. <em>Somehow</em>, though, you manage to maintain the separation. Natasha’s prying questions, Stark’s intentional invasions of your personal space, Sam’s harmless but persistent flirting. </p>
<p>It’s all so easily deflected. Made even easier now that the family you’d always resisted has been fractured. You don’t care to foster intimate relationships with any of these people. And you <em>definitely</em> don’t care to put in a submission to Captain America’s To-Do List. </p>
<p>Everyone, <em>everyone</em> has something to add to his list. Even Bucky, <em>Bucky</em>, who has spent the better part of 70 years in and out of cryo, brain pulled apart and replaced with a new, foreign synapse each time, said <em>something</em> about a movie he’d seen <em>somewhere</em>. </p>
<p>It bothers him. It shouldn’t, but it does. </p>
<p>Steve can physically feel it–  that’s how much it bothers him. A now permanent path of his eyes to your form in a room. An itch in his fingers for a pen and paper anytime you say <em>anything</em>. A burn on the tops of his ears, hot and red, if you smile softly at some reference he doesn’t understand. <em>Is that a signal? </em>Would that be a suggestion if you actually talked to him?</p>
<p>Regardless, he trusts you. A boundless amount. Unexplainable given just how little the two of you have actually spoken.</p>
<p>You don’t make suggestions for the list, and it only really bothers him because he <em>does</em> trust you. He wants to know what you have to say, what you think is important for him to experience. What you like. If, perhaps, what makes you feel at home in this world could help him too. </p>
<p>It’s a Thursday and he’s thumbing the pages of his notebook when Natasha gets the idea. </p>
<p>The quinjet cabin is filled with a heavy, pregnant silence that no one can bear to cut through. Full-term. Unbearable pressure on the sciatic nerve-type silence. 9 months discomfort and anxiety, stifling their words. </p>
<p>A mission gone right, but leaving a bad taste in their mouths. </p>
<p>Bucky sits near the front, aimlessly bouncing a tennis ball against the starboard wall. Sam is in the co-pilot seat, trying to read a book with a red cover and yellow spine. Nat’s knuckles turn white on the yoke, keeping the quinjet on track even though it could pretty much fly on its own. </p>
<p>You like music, Steve thinks. You there now in the back corner– fingers drumming to the private beat on your thigh, eyes closed and head tipped back, white of earbuds in stark contrast with your dark combat suit– is a frequent sight. He imagines your recommendation might be an album for him to listen to. </p>
<p>Steve’s fingers ghost over the familiar scrawl of his list; some crossed out, some recently added. He decides it could use more music. </p>
<p><em><b>You should just ask her</b>,</em> Natasha smirks, jutting her chin your direction. When she moved to sit next to him, Steve didn’t know. But, she is, after all, <em>the</em> spy. He’d been otherwise occupied anyway. He lifts his bowed head up to fix her with a puzzled look. Nat gives him <em>that</em> smirk and Steve has to fight back a groan. Knocking her knee against his, she teases,  <em><b>you know, she can probably feel you staring.</b></em></p>
<p>His eyes shoot over in your direction, sighing a little in relief when you <em>seem</em> to still be lost in the music pumping in your ears. Steve realizes Natasha isn’t talking about the list. Years now, and she still hasn’t given up on playing his personal matchmaker. It’s slowed, surely, due to circumstance, but she’s never satisfied. <em>A date</em>. He should ask you on a date, is what she means. He’s suddenly as red in the face as the tips of his ears and Natasha’s hair. </p>
<p>Steve’s not blind; you’re attractive. Soft and hard in so many ways. Lips, pink and pillowy and parted ever so slightly. Sharp line of your jaw clenched, brows furrowed. The gentle curve of your neck, warm skin disappearing beneath a dirt stained, hole ridden suit that hasn’t seen mending hands in months. Not since you followed him in his free fall from grace. </p>
<p>You’d followed. <em>Wordlessly.</em> Burned out, abandoned by coworkers and the public, you resigned yourself to this life of Motel hopping and operating outside of the realm of what’s legal. Though not outside of what’s right. Pondering what any of that could mean feels forbidden to Steve. The hard shell of a man, not any less great, but perhaps less sure.</p>
<p>He looks back at Natasha with a low shake of his head, abruptly shutting his notebook. She sighs, but takes the hint. <em>Enough</em>. Not now. </p>
<p>Almost a year later, he does ‘just ask’. </p>
<p>It’s kind of like a date, in barely-there ways. You’re left alone, facing each other in a booth, knees brushing. You go to the bathroom, Steve orders for the both of you. Kind of like a date. </p>
<p>Stuffed in the sticky booth of some diner in Middle America, alone together. Natasha gone off on her own again. Bucky recovering in Wakanda. Sam out like a light on a creaking Motel 6 mattress– hard, just like he likes it. Your muscles like jelly, stomachs rumbling with the dull ache of hunger, soaked head to toe from the torrential downpour outside. No idle chit chat for you two. Steve stares out the window, impossible blue eyes following the path of a raindrop. You ring the bottom of your shirt out onto the small bit of floor between two pairs of feet. It splatters on the ground loudly. </p>
<p><em>Not</em> a date. </p>
<p>You risk a glance at him over the piping hot brim of your coffee mug. Silently marvel at just how much he’s changed through thin white wisps of steam. More than longer hair, more than a handsome and disguising beard, more than the ripped out star of his suit sitting in a heap on the motel room floor. You can’t say how, it’s more a feeling. </p>
<p>He’s a lot quieter now. Like you. </p>
<p>Steve’s always been stoic. Passionate when needs be, but not exactly loose with his emotions; never as restrained now. His voice was always strong and sure, but never quite so gruff from frequent disuse as in this past year. You suppose it’s partially your fault. With Natasha gone much more now and Sam talking enough to carry a conversation himself, you’re not exactly great company. You might be one of the reasons he speaks less and less. </p>
<p>A pretty waitress is smiling wide at him, a signal that she <em>knows</em>. A beard and hat pulled down as far as possible would never be enough to hide those golden boy blue eyes. Those eyes millions of women would gladly melt into a puddle of rainwater on the dirty floor of some diner in Midwest America for. You’d have to ask for a mop later to clean up the mess. Yours and the one spilling from ‘Molly’s lips. </p>
<p>"I heard you have a list", she smiles coy. You tuck in to the plate of chocolate chip pancakes doused in maple syrup as she bats her eyelashes down at him. </p>
<p>Steve shifts, glancing over at you seemingly uninterested in the conversation. He’d given up on you having anything to do with the list weeks ago. He may be a fugitive– may no longer be an Avenger, Captain America– but he’s still a nice guy.  </p>
<p>"Yes", he laughs kindly, hands clasped together on the table top.</p>
<p>You sniff and his eyes snap to yours again, tense. You’ll have to leave soon. Now that ‘Molly’ from the midnight shift at Red’s diner has seen Steve Rogers and his pretty blue eyes, you’ll have to wake Sam from his long overdue sleep and be gone before dawn. You wish he could’ve been left longer. It’s just how things work these days. A long shot from living plush, courtesy of Tony Stark. But you can wait long enough to finish coffee and breakfast.</p>
<p>"Can I make a suggestion?" she leans down and speaks in soft tones, a wicked grin hidden beneath those sweet, innocent looking red lips. </p>
<p>You raise a brow when Steve politely nods, pulling out his trusty notebook from his back pocket. Steve asks to borrow a pen which she hastily holds out to him, purposely having their fingers brush in the exchange. Surely he knows she’s flirting, he’s not <em>that</em> naive. There’s no way. He’s a nice guy, maybe<em> too</em> nice.</p>
<p>She’s young. You imagine she has spent more than a few nights looking up at a poster of his face, clean shaven and perfect, playing this exact conversation in her head. That she has carefully thought over what her input would be. </p>
<p>"You should definitely watch ‘Friends’ when you have the time." </p>
<p>You snort. Loudly. </p>
<p>Molly instantly shrinks in on herself, deflated. Steve gives you an odd look, which you brush off and promptly resume shoveling the sweet breakfast food into your mouth. </p>
<p>He’s <em>so</em> kind, it’s downright disgusting. Steve makes a point of writing it down underneath ‘Stevie Wonder’, smiling, "Thank you". And for good measure, when he returns the pen, Captain America runs his ring finger across her knuckle. Oh, he knew. <em>So considerate</em>, you almost want to smirk when you catch it.</p>
<p>She’s gone now to wait on the other late night stragglers, blushing and gently ghosting her fingers over the spot he’d touched. Your hurtful mocking isn’t enough to dampen the feel of being caught in Steve Rogers’ warm glow. </p>
<p>His knee presses along the inside of yours again when he shifts to shove the small book back into his pants. You take a measured sip of coffee. </p>
<p>Steve raises a brow in your direction, "Did you have a better suggestion?"</p>
<p>There. He’s asked. </p>
<p>Maybe he could finally breathe in your presence now. </p>
<p>No luck considering you simply shrug and break from his gaze. So unreadable. It’s frustrating. He has half a mind to write <em>‘shrug’ </em>underneath ‘Friends’. <em>Are you?</em> Friends, he means. You’ve known each other what feels like a lifetime now. At whatever this is for a year and a half. He can count on one hand the amount of conversations not involving a mission you’ve shared. </p>
<p>He trusts you with his life, which, after everything that’s happened, is a rare commodity. He’s sure you feel the same. </p>
<p>You’d say that no, you’re <em>not friends</em>. You probably wouldn’t deny the unfathomable trust in each other, though. That’s comforting at least. You sleep a bed away every night after all. </p>
<p>Steve doesn’t really sleep. </p>
<p>He doesn’t know you know that; you don’t sleep either. </p>
<p><em>He’s staring</em>, maybe he doesn’t realize it. </p>
<p>You’ve abandoned your fork, suddenly feeling sick with it. That fucking blue. It split you like butter and might’ve knocked you over had you not been tightly gripping your knee under the table. </p>
<p>So handsome it <em>hurts</em>. How could anyone be that pretty? Heartbreaking. Even before the serum– you’ve seen the pictures. Breathtaking. The beard. The beard is really something. So so pretty. Adonis <em>and</em> Aphrodite. Michelangelo’s David. Torturous. </p>
<p>It’s been almost a full minute now. Of him, just staring. You clear your throat in hopes it might pull him out of whatever it is that has claimed him. It doesn’t work. You talk just to end it. You know for certain that will surprise him. </p>
<p>"Why do you even keep up with it?" The list. That stupid goddamned list.</p>
<p>You can see the flush on Steve’s neck when he does realize that he’d stared<em> at</em> you, <em>through</em> you,<em> in</em> you, for the longest two minutes in history. He coughs into his fist. "What do you mean?" his brow furrows, and you almost want to touch the crease between them to make it go away. It’s a ridiculous thought. One you shake away with another measured sip of coffee. </p>
<p>"Doesn’t it seem…" you shrug, and there’s an urge in him to grab you by the shoulders and beg you to stop fucking shrugging so goddamned much. Steve thinks he might go insane if he sees those shoulders twitch up again. "I dunno, kind of pointless now?"</p>
<p>In a way, yes, it is. Steve can’t exactly pop in a film or binge watch a tv show like this. And sitting down to read a book doesn’t really seem right. He doesn’t answer. You watch him finally pick up his own fork, cutting into an omelette more cheese and meat than egg. </p>
<p>It still rains down hard. </p>
<p>Steve pays the bill, smiling tightly at Molly when she lays her hand on his bicep. He tips her well, she was sweet and young and still half terrified from just you snorting. You follow a few paces behind him out of the diner, mindful of maintaining that distance. Neither of you bother to fight against getting soaked. </p>
<p>You’re both immediately set on edge when three cars pull into the parking lot, tightly together. It’s the kind of thing you’d been trained to be suspicious of. The kind of thing that never means anything good when around people like you. It means they have come for you both. It means you’ll probably have to fight. He pauses underneath the buzzing neon sign. His back is to you, the tense expanse of muscles outlined by the wet shirt clinging to his skin. A breath. Another. </p>
<p>
  <em>Giggling.</em>
</p>
<p>You hear giggling of all things, bubbling through the parking lot. Girls, a whole crowd of them, spilling out of the cars, hushing each other. His name is on their cherry chapstick lips. Not his name, his title: Captain America. Molly had texted them, that’s clear now. It’s better, at least, than your previous estimation. But it’s trouble nevertheless. </p>
<p>Steve turns to face you and somehow, the soft glow of red on his face only makes his eyes bluer. He takes a step forward. You understand. You always understand in the absence of words. There’s a link between the two of you when you’re in that working mode. That trust, tangible in how you too, step forward. It’s procedural. You fall into it so easily. His head ducks, yours raises. Eyes locked in one another, but ears elsewhere, listening. Not touching, but near to it. A breath away. Swaying in the rain. You feel it sizzle on your skin, see it coming off him in steam. </p>
<p>No one bothers the two lovers, obviously too occupied with each other to be superheroes. Natasha had taught you both that. </p>
<p>It pours harder yet. </p>
<p>The giggles fade into nothing, drowned in the monsoon– no space between the fat drops pelting the earth. They couldn’t see the two of you now even if they tried. </p>
<p>"Why did you come? You never really said," he has to shout, the rain is so loud. </p>
<p>You’ve left a lot unsaid. Some things are better that way. </p>
<p>Steve’s hands, large and powerful, stop your shoulders mid shrug. "Don’t," he squeezes his eyes shut, drops of rain trickling down the slopes of his nose, "For the love of God, don’t fucking shrug."</p>
<p>Everything is heavy: your drenched clothes, his hands still gripping your shoulders, the crushing weight in your chest– the rock lodged in your throat with all the things you’ve never said for the sake of some stupid credo about not letting things get personal. You’ve let the words die on your lips and for what? It did nothing. The lines blurred anyway, out of your control. </p>
<p>The truth: there hasn’t been a distance greater than the width of his notebook between the two of you for a long time now. </p>
<p>
  <em>You pretend. </em>
</p>
<p>You both pretend that absence of any extended conversation means you haven’t already learned everything about each other just by watching. Stealing glances when the other is turned away. Steve pretends that the reason your input in the list matters so much to him is because he wants to know the people he’s trusting with his life. </p>
<p>He <em>already</em> knows you. Not your favorite color or band, but <em>you.</em> Your outline in the darkness of a thousand motels. The smell of you under layers of grime and sweat and blood– you’re scrubbed clean with the same soap he uses. Your breathing patterns: one when you’re resting with your earbuds in, head bopping to songs he’s not been privy to; another when you’re side by side in combat, moving together like one; the most prominent, when you’re both laying in bed staring at the ceiling, too lost in thought to even care about sleep. </p>
<p>You know him too.</p>
<p>His question. How do you answer? <em>You followed</em>. Wasn’t that answer enough?</p>
<p>"Where’s your notebook?" You ask instead, though it’s more of a call in this downpour. </p>
<p>Steve’s brow furrows again, left hand flying back to pat the small book in his pocket. This time, you do reach out, though you don’t have to go very far. His breath quickens when the pad of your thumb brushes against the wet crease of skin pulled together in uncertainty. He swallows hard, rifling through the pages a little messy because he can’t stop looking at you. Your hand stays there until the pressure releases. For a good second after, too.     </p>
<p>When he finally opens it up to the two pages worth of ‘to-do’, the ink is running. <em>Black to blue</em>. A melted mess of jumbled letters on delicate paper one wrong twitch away from ripping. </p>
<p>You take it from his hands,<em> gentle</em>, because you’re pretty sure this notebook has been a lifeline for him. Grounding. There’s sketches in there that you’ve only caught glimpses of. </p>
<p>You lament now that it has been ruined by the rain. </p>
<p>"I don’t have a pen," he says softly. Softly, because he’s closer now than you’ve ever been. You’ve never heard him so soft. So cautious that his voice might scare you away. You spare a languid glance up to see just how close he is. It must be only inches because you can hear him through the rain. You tilt your chin to the sky, heavy lids widening slightly. He’s closer than even that. Not inches, centimeters. If you hadn’t been swaying in synchronization and instead leaned forward at the same time…</p>
<p>You don’t even know what you’re doing. For the first time in a while, you’re scared. </p>
<p>The book is closed between your palms, the list shut. You’ll deal with it another day. You’ll help him remember everything that was on there so he can rewrite it. </p>
<p>Steve leans in more. Not enough. </p>
<p>"I’ll just tell you then," you nod quickly, swallowing down the raindrops the fell into your open mouth. Steve’s chest brushes against yours as you both suck in heavy breaths. You press the notebook there, against the hard swells of his front, closer to his heart. </p>
<p>Which question are you answering? Why did you come? Or did you have a better suggestion?</p>
<p>"Bob Dylan."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"Bob Dylan," you repeat, "Bringing It All Back Home. 1965."</p>
<p>
  <em>"Oh."</em>
</p>
<p>The stupid list. For years now, that’s all he’s wanted to hear. But there, under the neon sign, in the parking lot of Red’s diner, drenched in the deluge of rain, it’s not enough. </p>
<p>"We’ll listen to it together," you smile and he’s never seen it quite so big or bright.</p>
<p>Together. It <em>is </em>enough. </p>
<p>Your lips taste of rain and maple syrup. He’ll remember it for a while. Forever, maybe. And him, you don’t recall something ever being so rich in your life. Steve’s mouth, so decadent you could die with a sated smile still. It’s all the sweeter, the press of your lips together; in it all those words left unsaid. You breathe them into his mouth, warm and red and waiting, and he sears them back into yours with the delicate slide of his tongue. Mouths together form lost sentences and <em>sing</em>. A crescendoing flurry of soundless vowels and consonants that only the two of you will ever hear. </p>
<p>Steve faintly hears the notebook fall in a splash at your feet and you can feel the grin in his lips by the scratch of his beard against your chin. You’ll feel guilty for dropping it later, but your hand had been hellbent on curling itself under his arms and around his shoulder. His own hands cradle your neck and face, slipping across the rain wet planes of your face. And those forearms, like hams, rest heavily on your shoulders– so that you can never shrug again. If you can’t find the words, Steve’s content to have you speak them on his lips. </p>
<p>Everyone’s got a submission to his list. But yours come with a kiss. Yours is the only one that he’s ever <em>really</em> cared about.  </p>
<p>Sam complains weeks later that he’s sick of hearing Bob Dylan.</p>
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